Friday, 24 September 2010

Business could be hit by new green tax

Thousands of Britain's businesses could be hit by a new green tax to help raise money for the Treasury, a leading advisory body to the Government has warned. Within three years about 4,000 large businesses could have to pay tens of thousands of pounds in extra tax, depending on how much commercial electricity they use. This is one of the options outlined by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), which has been given the task of simplifying the "very complex" carbon reduction commitment, which is due to come into force at the end of this month. The scheme involves Britain's biggest companies and all public sector organisations, if they consume more than 6,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of energy a year - meaning a power bill of about £500,000 - must register its energy use by the end of this month. From April 2011, firms will need to buy permits for each tonne of carbon dioxide emitted. For those using 6,000MWh, that could mean £38,000. The scheme is intended to create a financial incentive to cut energy use, and those organisations that record the biggest reductions will get bonuses, funded by penalties imposed on those with the worst record. However, the CCC has warned the scheme will become far more complex from April 2013 when the Government will put a cap on how many permits each company can buy and firms can auction their permits on the open market. David Kennedy, the chief executive of the CCC, in charge of advising the Government on reducing carbon emissions, said he and his expert analysts had "struggled to understand" many aspects of how the scheme worked, so many companies would do so too. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8020510/Business-could-be-hit-by-new-green-tax.html